Just got an email with the T1 Trust annual update. Lots of big projects.

I might live long enough to see her run.

Teddy

https://youtu.be/0ECraS-1uTE?si=tovafu_MGjS-ooq4

Well done report and very encouraging progress. She sure will be a sight to see charging down the mainline at 130 mph plus. Can't wait to see it. Ross Rowland

There is an interesting photo of an original T1 casting after the pour but before it was cleaned up at 2:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ECraS-1uTE

Hello.

When the 614 gets dismantled in Strasburg for overhaul, we will get full exposure to the wonderful one piece cast steel frame Lima used on it , which is rarely seen , mostly hidden when in use and is very impressive in and of itself. Frame technology, state of the art in its day and can be now be recreated in plate as is in the T1. It would be fair to say the steel plate version will be much more robust pound per pound as its cast steel predecessor.

Casting steel is challenging alone and molding and pouring these must have been monumental. The gates and risers alone must have been many tons beyond the core frame only to be gassed off when pulled from the sand. Air arcs are brutally wicked tools, horrendous noise and molten metal flying on all directions!

Earlier in my career, at the company I worked, we had a cantankerous engineer who strongly advocated for steel fabrication versus casting. We struggled badly with large stainless steel castings. Wrought with sand inclusions and porosity, the defects would be gouged out with an air arc leaving huge holes in the castings, the holes then filled with weld metal! Absolutely miserable and costly. The engineer said the castings had holes big enough to throw a cat through them!

It is my plan to make at least two shop tours when the 614 gets torn down. It will be a rare chance for the public to see a full overhaul on a locomotive this large and this modern. It will be interesting!!

Randy Musselman

Randy makes an important point. In the last years of steam Lima used as one of its sales tools that it had perfected the production of an all cast frame thus producing a stronger overall machine with a longer expected lifetime of service.

By all means I hope that as many serious steam lovers as possible will take the opportunity to do a shop tour at Strasburg while the 614 undergoes her 1472 day overhaul.

Ross Rowland

We bought a new car last year and just got notified by the manufacturer that due to a casting master defect in both the transmission and engine block castings they used at the time we get an unlimited mileage warranty in both time and mileage. Transmission has a weaker wall in a clutch pack area that will fail at a future mileage they are unsure of when yet and the engine castings are to puros and as they age and coolant penetrates the block it will seep into the oil passages. You have to love Kia engines.